A/N: Things of a graphic nature happen in this chapter. If you don't care for that sort of thing, I'm sorry, but the story is rated M for a reason.
I disclaim.
With Draco's arm firmly around Ginny's waist, they Apparated into the manor. Determined to give him the hardest time 'teaching' her anything, Ginny kicked her heel back into his shin, but got only the satisfaction of a small hiss of pain. She quit struggling as he pulled her through the door; she was obviously not doing anything but making him angry, and every time she pushed against him, the steel strength of his arm cut across her rib cage, sending a jet of pain through her chest.
"Ow," she complained. "I am perfectly able to walk—"
Draco jerked her body roughly toward him in response and continued to stride down the hall, hauling Ginny along as she were a piece of luggage. He stopped in front of a large door and knocked.
"Enter."
Draco opened the door with his free hand and stepped into the room, setting Ginny down as he closed the door behind him.
"I've found her, Father," Draco drawled, though there was still a clear edge in his voice.
Lucius looked up from the ornate desk with papers strewn across it, took a sip of brandy from a tumbler, and smiled.
"Why, Ginevra, have you once again decided to grace us with your presence?"
Ginny brought herself up to her full height, still feeling a bit dwarfed by the tall blond who stood at her elbow. "Why?" she asked impudently. "Did you miss me?"
She felt Draco move beside her, but Lucius held up his hand and replied, "Yes, my dear. I do believe Narcissa has mourned the disappearance of a most beloved daughter-in-law these seven days."
Ginny rolled her eyes, inwardly impressed with her own courage. "Bollocks. You just miss me because you couldn't carry out your precious little plan."
Once again, Ginny felt Draco stiffen, but Lucius merely gave his drink a delicate swirl and smiled. "Oh?"
"You thought I didn't know about that Sang Primoris spell. But I did," Ginny spat, "and I ruined your scheming."
Lucius laughed and set down his drink. "Is that what you think, my dear?"
Ginny was in no mood to be intimidated. "Yes. And I know more than that. I know about the banks, and the wands, and—"
Lucius waved a hand dismissively. "That's all fine and good, my dear, but it doesn't concern you. What I really want to know is whether or not you have done anything in the past two weeks that, as the wife of a Malfoy, might be regrettable to us all?"
Ginny opened her mouth to retort and then shut it just as quickly. "What do you mean?" she asked, confused.
Lucius leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk and clasping his hands as he stared Ginny down with piercing silver eyes.
"Did you, Mrs. Malfoy, do anything in the past two weeks that might have broken the vows you made to your husband?" he asked, drawing out each word slowly. "Particularly those vows regarding fidelity?"
Ginny slowly comprehended his meaning and blushed scarlet. "I…I…" she tried to answer.
"It's not really a secret you can keep, Ginevra," Draco said softly from behind her, again wrapping a possessive arm around her waist, siphoning away her breath. "I'll know soon enough."
"Draco makes an excellent point, Ginevra," Lucius said, looking at her expectantly.
Ginny looked at the floor and shook her head. Her face flamed as hot tears prickled in the corners of her eyes, and she blinked furiously, watching the rich patterns on the oriental carpet flick in and out of focus.
"Ginevra, I believe my wife has instructed you in the necessity of answering your betters when they ask a question of you. Aloud, my dear."
"N—No. I haven't," she mumbled.
Lucius stood and walked around his desk, stopping directly in front of her. He tipped her chin up with a graceful finger and peered into her eyes. "You will answer me in a full sentence, without stuttering or mumbling."
Ginny swallowed as a hot tear slipped onto her flaming cheek. "I haven't done anything to…break my vows," she said, wishing she could sink into the patterned rug and disappear.
"Excellent. Thank you, my dear," Lucius said, brushing his thumb across her cheek, dabbing away the solitary tear before letting her go and turning back to his desk.
"Father?" questioned Draco, his arm still draped around Ginny's waist.
Lucius sighed and sat down again at his desk. "I have no more need of her. She's all yours," he smiled. "Do what you must."
Draco nodded obediently, then slid his arm around Ginny's waist once more and turned her sharply, guiding her out of the room. Her burst of extremely foolish bravery had melted away, and now it was taking the better part of her courage to not quake in fear every time the strong arm wrapped around her pulled her a little closer to turn a corner.
He led her through the twists and turns of the Manor's ridiculously long corridors and back into her old room, which looked just the same as it had a week ago when she had been dressing for her wedding. The memory of those feelings wrenched Ginny in the gut, and she could feel her heart begin to rise with panic.
The sky outside was purpled with twilight, and Draco released Ginny. He circled the room, waving his wand to light the candles in the sconces, and she watched him helplessly, trying desperately to regain control of her being, recognizing that she was on the verge of releasing a deluge of frightened tears—and hating herself for it.
He finally turned toward her and slipped his wand into the pocket of his trousers, and Ginny noticed vaguely that his loathing of Muggle things did not extend to cashmere sweaters. He slowly slipped off the dove grey crew and began to cuff the white oxford underneath, keeping his eyes trained on her all the while.
She was holding her breath. Fear twisted in her stomach as he watched her, for while his face was placid, she did not like the glitter in his eyes. He stepped toward her and she unconsciously stepped back. He paused in the arrangement of his sleeves and arched an eyebrow at her.
"Ginevra," he began, and paused, studying her face for a moment. Was there a flicker of uncertainty in his? Ginny couldn't be sure what she saw. "Ginny," he began again, "I don't want to hurt you, love."
He glanced down and straightened his shirt cuff so that it lay just below his elbow. He looked back at her, and she was surprised to see softness in his eyes that she hadn't known possible. It was a trick, she thought—yet, her fear ebbed.
He stepped closer, and she raised her hands to her chest in an unconscious act of defense. Slowly, he reached out and took her hands in his own, kissing each one in a way that was almost tender. She didn't like this new, affectionate Draco. She felt too much like the fly the spider invited to tea.
Pulling her gently by the hands, he led her to the edge of the bed, and Ginny felt her fear bubble up again—she wanted, no, needed to be as far away from that as possible—and this time the impulse was to fight. She wrenched her hands from his and pushed away, hard.
Draco, however, was unhampered by irrational fear and moved more quickly. He scooped her up with both arms, completely ignoring her kicking and clawing, and set her gently on the surface of the bed. He threw an arm over her waist, ignoring her thrashing and protests, and put his weight on it, leaning over her.
"Really, Ginevra? After everything you've been through—everything your friends have been through?" he drawled calmly, as though she weren't madly trying to escape.
Ginny stilled. She recognized the veiled threat, and she felt her fire die again as she realized, for the first time, that she had no way of knowing which of the Order—of her brothers—Draco had tracked down and probably captured before finding her.
Draco kept one hand firmly at her side, but he lifted the other to her face and gently traced away a stray tear. With an almost aching slowness, he drew his fingers across her cheek and down her jaw, smoothing them across the delicate curve where her neck met her shoulder. He continued his way down to the neckline of her shirt, where he stopped and pulled back with a smirk.
"No buttons this time."
He moved his fingers to the bottom of her shirt and grazed his fingernails along the sides of her waist. Ginny gasped as his fingers touched her skin and was startled when Draco smiled down at her.
"I've missed that sound," he murmured.
He drew his fingers back across her waist, hitching her shirt up and tracing small circles on her pale stomach, traveling around to the smooth skin on her lower back. Ginny fought within herself—he was manipulating her, she could tell. She had no pretentious self-delusion that Draco would willingly seduce her without his own end game at the forefront of his mind.
But to fight him would only mean pain—and not just her own. His barely hinted threat earlier had made that quite clear. Yet the idea of giving over and enduring this willingly plunged Ginny into a world of fear. Suddenly, his every move was her only thought, as all of the other rational ones retreated to a safer place.
He gently pulled her up to sit next to him, and the instant thought of rebellion was quenched by the strong arms encircling her waist. She found that the only place to go, where he couldn't pierce her with his mercury eyes, was when her face was pressed into his chest.
She gasped again as he adjusted his arms around her, pressing her face further into the soft cotton of his shirt. He smelled like amber and vanilla, she noted vaguely, still trapped in a paradox of numbness and hyper-awareness. Draco continued drawing small patterns along her back with the pads of his fingers, and Ginny couldn't bring herself to rip away.
He lifted her top as if to pull it over her head, but Ginny kept her arms and head firmly against his chest, a rather unorthodox position for rebellion, but that was what it was.
With a motion so fast and fluid that Ginny had no time to comprehend it, Draco wrenched both of her arms above her head, and with them, her shirt. He cast the Muggle garment to the floor with the slightest hint of disdain, pulling Ginny back toward him.
Ginny sat shell shocked for a moment as the rational part of her brain flooded back in, decrying his action, then cast around for something to yell about or something to hurt, but Draco seemed intent on making that incredibly difficult for her.
Just as she opened her mouth, he ran his free hand up from her waist, stopping just shy of her bra. His fingers toyed idly with the fabric between her breasts, and he slipped a finger underneath and was rewarded with another small gasp. The last of Ginny's sudden burst of resolve was wiped away as his grey eyes caught her own and held them tightly.
"Shall I rip this off too?" he murmured, tugging slightly on the lacy fabric. "Or would you like a gentler lesson tonight?"
Ginny bit her lip. The courageous, Gryffindor side of her mind wanted to tell Draco exactly what he should rip off, but that part of her mind was a distant echo. The feeling of his skin on hers was a much more urgent matter.
"Love," Draco whispered in her ear. "Here's another lesson for you."
He leaned down and very slowly brought his lips to hers. He kissed her gently, then pulled back just a few inches, locking her eyes in a serious gaze.
"Kiss me back, Ginevra."
Ginny fidgeted slightly and involuntarily bit her lip again. Draco brought his golden head back down to hers, stopping a hair's breadth from her mouth. Ginny inhaled a slow breath of air and closed the gap between them with a hesitant kiss. Draco answered it with force and deepened the kiss until it was anything but chaste.
She noted vaguely that she'd forgotten how wonderful his kisses were.
He pulled away suddenly, locking his intense gaze on her once again, and then pulled her head toward his with both hands, snogging her so thoroughly that Ginny saw stars when she finally blinked with both eyes open.
She stared up at him for a long moment, suddenly fully aware that she was in a bedroom, in Malfoy Manor, kissing Draco Malfoy, who happened to be her husband, and that her shirt lay in a pile on the floor. The weight and the terror of the past several weeks—months—flooded her brain with violent force, and she suddenly felt very alone. It was too much, and for a moment, Ginny felt dizzy. She gripped his shirt tightly and kept her eyes fixed on his.
She watched as he swept his hair back, away from his face. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he lifted her chin and looked at her face as if he was memorizing it.
He slowly closed the distance, and she could feel the warm solidness of his chest beneath his shirt. He was going to kiss her again, and part of Ginny wanted to tell him off, and another part was frightened. But another voice had entered her brain—a voice that desperately wanted him to do just that.
Just moments before his lips should have touched hers, he stopped. He hovered just centimeters away from her, unmoving except for his slow, steady breathing.
Ginny's breath was far from steady. Her heart had begun beating erratically a long time ago, but now its pounding was so loud that it was irreversibly cutting off logical thought. She could feel his warm breath and smell his cologne, but he wasn't touching her at all. Despite that, Ginny felt sure she'd been paralyzed by some enchantment—like her skin was on fire.
"Go on, Gin. You've done this before."
As if he had broken an spell, Draco's soft whisper threw Ginny's brain into fast-forward. Suddenly, she was kissing him, holding onto his head and shoulders with ferocious determination and plundering his mouth like a woman possessed.
Which, reflected a tiny voice at the back of her mind, she probably was.
She felt strong arms lift her up, pulling her still closer, and she let him trap her there, pinned tightly against his solid chest. Ginny dizzily realized that she felt extremely warm, and she wondered for the briefest of moments why the room was so hot, before another assault on her bruised mouth ended linear thought.
Draco could feel her soften slowly under his touch, and didn't bother to hide the subtle curl upward at the corner of his mouth as he gave her the smallest of smirks and gently brushed a tendril of damp hair away from her face.
He leisurely leaned back and smoothly ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek, along her jaw and shoulder. Ginny shivered as she struggled with the need to shy away and the desire to lean in to his touch. He slowly wrapped his fingers around the lacy strap of her bra and slipped his hand under it, tracing the line of the fabric with the tip of his fingernail as he eased lower.
Ginny's breath hitched in her throat as his hand slid down further and gently pulled the filmy fabric out of the way. His eyes were intent on his handiwork, but he glanced up for a moment and met her wide-eyed gaze with a calm glance.
His silver eyes held her own as he moved in for a tender kiss on the mouth, his hand closing over her breast and sending a shockwave of electricity from her toes to her fingertips. He kept her there for a moment that felt like an eternity, gently, almost protectively holding her upright. His other hand slipped behind her, drawing her again into his chest, and for a moment, Ginny's fear faded away.
"Alright, love," Draco whispered in her ear, still holding her close, "This time, you're going to do the unbuttoning." He pulled away with her and picked up her hands, which were wrapped rather protectively around her waist. He lifted them to his collar, holding her gaze with unfaltering eyes.
Ginny swallowed. She didn't want to do this. Did she?
"Go on. It's just a button," he instructed softly, still holding her wrist.
Tentatively, Ginny slid the small button through the soft fabric.
"Good girl," Draco said quietly, guiding her hand to the next one. "Again."
Ginny was again reminded of the spider inviting the fly home for tea, but her fingers unwittingly slid another button free, and she realized she was holding her breath. Draco's shirt slipped open a bit, his pale skin gleaming in the candlelight.
Draco lowered her hand again, this time making sure that her fingertips grazed the skin behind the fabric, and repeated his instructions. "Again."
Ginny exhaled slowly and repeated the motion on the third button. Her eyes snagged on his, and she realized that the look in his eyes was one she'd never seen before.
Slowly, he let go of her hand, and she looked at him, puzzled.
"Go on. You know what to do," he said his voice low and coldly austere—so different from how he had sounded a moment before.
Ginny bit her lip and looked up at him. "I—" she began. Draco arched an eyebrow. His hair fell across his forehead, messy, as though he'd just been snogged rather violently—which, Ginny reminded herself, he had. The cotton shirt that she was opening so very slowly fell loosely around him, showcasing the toned muscles that she knew all too well.
He looked surprisingly disheveled, and for a moment, Ginny was startled.
She hadn't realized that Draco could be anything beyond immaculately controlled, and now, here, half-naked in front of him, she became incredibly aware that she was the cause of this change.
"Ginny," he said, his voice low with warning, "finish it."
Feeling strangely, unreasonably, confident, she slipped her fingers around the edge of the shirt and flipped the remaining four buttons open, one by one, until his shirt fell open. She yanked her hands back with a startled intake of breath, and he smirked as he let it slip off his shoulders and pool on the floor with hers.
Slowly, he pushed her back onto the bed and engulfed her mouth in another kiss. His skin met hers with pure fire, and for a moment, neither one could breathe.
Draco dragged his fingernails along her side, etching faint pink marks across her waist and hips. His fingers caught on the waist of her denims, and he broke the kiss only to smirk at her.
"This won't do, will it?"
With practiced ease, he had them off before Ginny could breathe, and almost as an afterthought he removed his own as well.
He lay back down next to her, his skin pressed flush against hers, and met her eyes with a look of incredible seriousness. He ran his hand lightly over her stomach, gently pressing his fingers into her soft skin. She noticed a vague smile at the sharp breath she took as his hand flitted over the lacy waistband of her knickers.
He unconcernedly ran a hand lower, brushing more sensitive areas, and Ginny's whole body reacted as if he'd electrocuted her.
"I think you're going to enjoy this lesson, darling," he drawled, smirking, as Ginny's eyes snapped to his face with concern.
Still reeling, she made herself focus on his eyes, which were a smug, hard silver.
"Enjoy what lesson?" she asked tentatively, in a vain attempt to buy her mind time to comprehend this.
Draco smirked again., "The one in which I teach you to beg," he replied nonchalantly, propping his head up with one arm and slipping the other gently between her thighs.
Ginny swallowed. This was new territory, and she did not like the way her body was reacting to it.
"Teach me to beg?" she replied, barely aware that the waver in her voice was the reason for her husband's detached smirk.
"Mmhmm," he murmured, kissing her neck gently while giving her inner thigh a light squeeze. "And I think," he paused, kissing her collar bone and sliding his hand up a bit more, "that I've proven," he smirked as Ginny hissed with surprise when his lips closed over her breast, "to be an excellent teacher."
With a fluid motion, he flipped her to her back and smoothly parted her legs, slipping his hand right over that spot—the one that made Ginny forget to breathe.
He was wicked.
But he was right. Somewhere in the haze of a completely new world of experiences, Ginny's knickers disappeared. Draco smirked down at the redhead, who was completely in his power, spread across his sheets, her naked skin practically glowing with want—want which was certainly not one-sided, he allowed.
She moaned aloud, the cue he'd been waiting for, and he instantly ceased his ministrations. She looked up at him with wide doe eyes, and he felt his own need increase ten-fold.
"What's wrong, precious?" he asked gently, carefully.
"N-nothing," she responded bravely.
Draco forgave her with a few languid kisses. He gave her another light touch, only to stop again as she arched back. This time, he was quite certain, she was holding back a pout.
"Do you need something, Ginevra?" He drawled lazily, running his other hand up to cup her breast, drawing his thumb in small circles around her tender nipple until it was hard.
Ginny bit her lip. He had put some sort of spell on her, she was sure. Like the Imperius, perhaps—she had never felt this out of control of her own body.
Draco didn't wait for an answer. He kissed her, hard, and brought her back to that state of not-quite-reality again. Ginny was fairly certain that there were fireworks going off in her stomach. If only he'd stop long enough to let her think—but—
"I know, Ginny," he said, letting deliberately measured sympathy meet her wide, amber colored eyes as she whimpered when he pulled his hand away. "But if you need something, you must ask."
"P—" She couldn't. She just couldn't. But her body was arching in flagrant betrayal of everything her heart was screaming, and her mouth just wouldn't obey, and—"Please?"
She hated herself, absolutely hated herself, for about the three seconds that it took for Draco to take her back to the land of fog and fireworks.
And what a land it was.
She died that small death at his hand, and with a shuddery sigh that was nearly a sob, she fell back to earth, landing on the soft mattress, and clung to the warm, pale skin that held her close.
Draco held her for a long moment, pressing her head up into his chest and marveling at the color of the red hair that slipped between his fingers. Never had he taken a girl that far over the edge. For a moment, he hated his father for what he had to do next; but she was as ready as she'd ever be, and it had to be done.
He slipped off his boxers, keeping Ginny close so that she couldn't see what he was doing. She was still clinging to him, digging her nails into his back and hiding her face in the crook of his neck, and he slid one hand back to keep her head there.
He carefully positioned himself and slid into her. She gasped, and closed his eyes and swallowed. He would never enjoy this part—and she would never know that. With a hard, quick thrust, he felt her break underneath him, and relief he didn't know he was harboring broke over him in waves. It was done.
Ginny let out a stifled scream, quite sure that he'd just managed to rip her whole body in two. "Shhhh," Draco said, smoothing her hair as he set her head down on the pillow. "Almost done."
She blinked back silent tears as he began to move very slowly and purposely. Each movement brought with it a different kind of pain, from the first sharp tear to the dull, fading ache as Draco collapsed next to her, suddenly. She shivered violently, her ears pounding with violent emotion after violent emotion. He'd done it—and now all she wanted to do was throw up. Anything to get rid of the feelings coursing through her blood.
She tried to sit up, but he flung an arm out.
"Don't move," he ordered, in a much different voice than the one that had comforted her minutes before.
"But I—you—" Ginny said. She was going to have to work on this speaking in complete sentences thing.
She was interrupted from her frustrated reverie when she realized that Draco, sitting up and still unclothed, was tracing a circle of sparks in the air around them. Ginny glanced at him and swallowed. That had been inside her? She felt a bit dizzy for a moment.
Draco muttered something and the sparks turned from gold to red.
"What are you—" she began again, but he silenced her with a look.
He slid his hand in between her legs, and she saw that his fingers were smeared with a faint trace of her own blood. She instantly felt sick. Only the blackest magic would require something so rare, so difficult to obtain, and so dearly given.
Draco seemed to have a similar opinion. His lip curled in disgust as he transferred the blood to the tip of his wand, then pointed it toward his own heart. Ginny watched with a sick fascination as the red sparks began to glow brighter, swirling back around the wand, and encasing Draco in red light. The light continued to move, rushing around Draco, and then curling around Ginny. She sat up suddenly as the light began to pool around her. Startled, she glanced up only to meet Draco's similarly shocked expression. Wasn't the spell supposed to affect him alone?
The sparks became a glowing light, which swirled into a dense fog, until all Ginny could see was a red glow. Her ears burned as a high pitched whistle filled them, searing the tone into her skull, and her nostrils filled with a spicy, pungent odor. Her skin began to feel warmer, then unbearably hot, and she realized that the light was being sucked into her skin, permeating her entire body with the sharp tingle of strong magic.
Time passed, perhaps minutes, maybe hours, the last of the Sang Primoris faded away into a red fog. Draco and Ginny stared at each other for a long moment, shell-shocked.
"Bloody fuck," murmured Draco. "What've we done?"
A/N: I know. It's been months. More importantly, it's been a YEAR since I posted the first chapter. Can you believe it? I can't. The journey I've been on has been an interesting one, to say the least, and I've truly enjoyed all the friends I've made along the way. You know who you are, and I adore you.
This chapter probably still wouldn't be here if it weren't for a lot of those people, especially scubarang and Kim (Boogum) for their insight, critiques, and encouragement, and certainly not without my amazing beta, Gidge8, who never ceases to stretch me. Oh, and Lunar Fire, I'm waiting.
To all the reviewers who flattered, praised, critiqued, complained, and otherwise highly encouraged and entertained, THANK YOU.
scubarang—this one's for you.
So…thoughts?